


desolation all wrecked and ruined

by kuro49



Series: 200 subs promptathon of 2020 [10]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: BruJay Week 2020, Getting Back Together, M/M, Riding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:28:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22844050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: Jason looks like he could cry. But in a good way, Bruce thinks.
Relationships: Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne
Series: 200 subs promptathon of 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622572
Comments: 2
Kudos: 135
Collections: BruJay Week 2020





	desolation all wrecked and ruined

**Author's Note:**

> written for brujay week day 7: creator's choice and for anon on tumblr who asked for brujay + loss of sight whether literal or not. so i settled for loss of sight (of what’s important) and then also threw in a quick blindfold moment because i can.

Dying is harsh with death in itself harder.

Makes coming back to life so much more gruesome than it needs to be. Leaves a lot to be desired really when his heart gets rearranged in the process even if it still beats for one man and _just_ one man. And desire, well. That's what got them into trouble the first time around.

It is probably in bad spirit that he makes these jokes at all.

In bad faith, and in some deep dark morbid need to shock, he leaves a trail of Red Hood from the master bedroom door all the way to the edge of the mattress.

This is where Bruce finds Jason, after a long grueling night of patrol: Face pressed between two pillows with his bare ass barely covered, most of the sheets tangled around his ankles while blood sluggishly soaks through the bandages wrapped haphazardly around one thigh in a neat little circle.

It twists something painful inside of Bruce to have Jason in his bed again. Like this, snoring softly.

Bruce falls asleep in the armchair in the corner of the room, wakes up with a crick in his neck and bloody sheets tossed over him.

Bed all empty. 

Maybe this is about mourning, Bruce supposes, when the Robin uniform remains streaked in a dead boy’s blood encapsulated in a pristine glass case.

Maybe this is about control, and how he seems to be losing all of it when the boy breathes and yells and bleeds all over a bed they used to share.

Jason disappears from Gotham after that night.

Bruce doesn't go digging, not because he already knows but because he has long since lost his right to know where Jason goes.

He goes through his routine, he reads through his case files, and when it gets dark, he goes out at night. Stalking the streets streaked in its own shadows, he swings, he dislocates a man's jaw. He puts himself through the paces of a man waging a war. He also takes apart the handgun hidden in the waistband of the man's jeans, breaking three of his fingers when he tried to reach for it.

"Do yourself a favour." Batman growls out over the screaming. "Stay down."

When Gordon turns on the signal, Bruce makes his way to the station.

It starts with blood.

Like most things that come full circle, it also ends with blood.

When Jason reappears in Gotham, it is in the center of a human trafficking ring.

Held in the basement of one of their transit points, Jason is beaten and bruised, surrounded by five overzealous goons who intend to find out who he is working for even if they need to gut him for the answer. There is still fresh blood dripping from his broken nose, pouring down over his lips and chin. The masochistic streak in him almost whines out loud, sounding like he is begging for it when his head is yanked back by the death grip in his hair.

Cool press of a serrated blade to his throat as one of the bad men leans in too close to murmur another threat.

It looks worse than it is. At least, this time, there aren’t maggots crawling across his skin. Fuck the small miracles if it means a better chance at the bigger ones.

And here might be a big one: A flash bang he doesn't need to close his eyes to when they had him blindfolded long before they ever even made the plans to drag him inside of this room. It rings, _shrill_ , but he doesn't need to hear to feel the tiny little give in the thick ropes binding the length of his arms to the back of the chair.

Eyes unseeing, ears unhearing, when the rope falls away, Jason moves.

What Jason doesn’t say is this: Like gum at the sole of his boots, like grass stains on the knees of his nice pants, like opening his eyes to find himself inside of his own grave gasping for air. If Jason gets to say so for himself, he is pretty damn fucking hard to get rid of.

Seems like Bruce is too when he yanks the blindfold down, and all Jason can see is the Bat clearing the room counterclockwise.

It isn't like he thinks he doesn't deserve love.

Jason isn’t that masochistic.

Their history, if seen through anything other than some very rose-tinted glasses, goes like this: He meets him at a low point, and manages to drag him even lower. It didn't feel that way though. As hard to believe as it is, Jason isn’t that far gone either. Even if it does come close on the days when he's been away from Gotham for too long and all he remembers of the city is every single good thing and none of the bad.

There are a lot of bad.

"Last time I waited for you."

Jason starts, and he looks like he is daring Bruce to finish the thought: It was a warehouse in Ethiopia. Far enough where his screams never even escaped the room itself. Where it was Hell disguised in powdery white and grease streaked green and the fucking dynamite rigged to explode haven't even began to count down.

"Last time you didn't make it, B."

He stands in the middle of the room, blood drying on his face, one eye starting to swell up.

"Last time—"

"Let me make it up to you." Batman says over the silence when every last one of the bad men that held Jason in captivity is completely out, lying sprawled on the ground with not even a twitch. "Starting now."

Jason closes his eyes but he can see it so clearly right this moment. It is no way to keep a relationship on just the basis of one emotion.

Because the need festers like an untreated wound, sepsis fills the whole body, until the only thing he knows in his veins is this love of theirs.

What he says: "Old man, I know you think you're stuck with me but you've got a choice."

What he means: And it doesn't have to be me.

Bruce doesn't draw closer. He doesn't dare. And it gives Jason a sense of power like nothing before when it is Batman, not Bruce, standing there on the other side of the room. They have been crossing the country and then halfway across the world and then into outer space too in any attempt to shake off this gravity, like it is this place yanking them back. Like it isn't one another.

What Bruce means: It never had to be you, it just is, I will choose you over and over and all over again even if we have to start from the beginning once more.

Jason is a pull unlike any other, even when he was dead and buried and his real body already stolen from the ground.

What Bruce says: "That's not a choice I want to make then."

"No one makes you do anything you don't want to. Ever."

Jason has vindication on his side, Bruce has conviction on his.

"That's right, Jay."

The same bed with a different set of sheets, Jason's bloody clothes lead a trail from the window to the edge of the mattress where Bruce lays on his back with Jason straddling over him.

He sighs. 

He whines. 

He pants for it. Making every kind of loud little noises as he takes himself apart on the thick slide of Bruce's cock inside of him. He rides Bruce with abandon, beads of sweat trailing down the arch of his spine as he rocks his hips like this is a normal thing. Having Bruce open him up as though he's always been the only one for him.

"Let me set your nose."

Bruce breathes out, around the taste of blood when Jason finally pulls back from the sloppy kiss.

Blinking bright wide eyes at him, Jason's lashes quiver, his hands shake a little too, but most of all, Jason tightens around him like a vice. He seems to crumple as he lets out a choked off little sound, wounded like the pain of his broken nose is coming back to him all at once. His eyes are rimmed in red, his bottom lip wobbles while blood stains his upper lip still. Jason looks like he could cry. But in a good way, Bruce thinks.

Jason accepts but he makes sure Bruce knows that it's unfair that Bruce offers at all. 

"Only so I can blow you later."

Bruce thought he would be at a loss but it feels natural for his mouth to tug into the smallest hint of a smile. "Okay, Jay."

"Just okay?" Jason squints at him.

"I look forward to it." Bruce corrects himself. And it's like the meaning behind Bruce's offer is only sinking in now as Jason's cheeks go pink. 

Razed down to the foundation, there is something to be build over top its wreck and its ruins.

They start here, at the beginning, in the aftermath of what follows desolation of their own forced creation.

Jason holds still for all of ten seconds that it takes for Bruce to reset his broken nose, brings the back of his hand up and wipes at the small trickle of fresh blood when he does.

And then he is moving again, dizzying as he feels Bruce beneath him as his thighs bracket the man. He fucks himself down, and his motion only stutters sharply when Bruce slides both hands up along his sides. Stopping just below his ribs, Bruce brushes a thumb along the edge of some deep tissue bruising while the other stays still, steadying.

Turning it deep, turning it slow, as Bruce rolls his hips up to match every downwards shove from Jason.

An anchor to his sails. Reverence is an odd look when it overtakes Bruce's face. He is a man at odds, five o'clock shadow scratchy beneath Jason's palms when he reaches out to touch what has always been his, and Bruce leans into it without hesitation.

"Okay?" Bruce asks, kissing Jason's fingertips.

He is within reach, warm beneath his hands. When Jason finally nods his head to the question being asked, it is unease being soothed out. The very last ember in this long enduring fire they've set being put out.


End file.
